basketball and halloween

dreaming lately of my childhood. so i'm in my elementary school, epiphany (yes, catholic school rocks!), and i'm playing basketball with those kids i've not seen in a decade. and i know i'm just visiting, returning, but i'm in a kid's body. and then it's halloween. and i'm thinking about how it's one of the few cultural festivals we have in this country.* and i want to take pictures of it, because it's a festival and it's exciting and it's new... but people are only taking pictures of their own kids, and there's thousands and thousands of kids on the playground... and nobody is understanding how unique and how important it is, just how funny their kid looks. and nobody thinks about how particular the rules of engagement are, even though it's free time and fun time and a party. for instance, you can't just dress up randomly in clothes. you have to be something. 'who are you, little one?' and all of a sudden the basketball game is gone, the halloween is gone, and there are two cats hissing at one another on my feet. i've woken up to kiki's catty existence...

off to: erin's bday party, a graduation party?, bar crawl, not exercising, and getting punched by my little sister. to do: BUY TICKET to europe!!

*did you know: the US is the country with the fewest holidays in the world?

Foreign Service

so i got an interview--well, an 'oral assessment.' passed the written exam. should be interesting. but filling out the information for the background check... not so fun. not so fun looking up all my part-time job phone numbers, contacts, and addresses... my family's soc #s... and all the places i've lived. does anyone remember my address in verona? ;)

PARTY

@ Tequila Roadhouse

Friday, August 5th.

8-10 Free cover!
9-10 Free drinks!
email me for info on getting in.

shower

i'm waiting for a shower. craving through the absence of thunder and lightening, a midwestern pouring down of that sort of fulfillment people still long for here. (an imagination from the diaspora?) there was a sunset tonight and i could see all of it-- from horizon to horizon-- by merely turning around. no hills to seek out no cities carving out a light of their own no ocean bending blurring the edges of the earth: plainly here the fast fading richness of growing things the neatly drawn boundary lines of this-sponsored supercorn and that-grown soybeans and this-and-that resiliant hay-- quilted, kempt, owned. but shared, this organic drapery.

asking them all if they water the grass. everything so green, righteously so. there is no stealing of resources here, no cities pocketed where they clearly do not belong. here could sustain many more than it does but here is thankful for its sparsity. here fosters the dreaming, methinks. so i watch day and night from my window perch above the garage the people slowly walk the cars slowly come and go and i walk to the other side of the house watch from the porch the pond slowly drift watch the country road we are all watching the corn grow.

i forget about this pace of life i forget about the green effortlessness of the grass i forget about contentment.

iv

okay, so now the page looks better with IE. having trouble with the margin/ column sizes... sigh.

iii

i know the page takes forever to load. was just really busy today. living out the most worthless day ever. am proud to say: didn't step outside once.

ah, summer.

Self Evident

Self Evident, ani difranco
You must check this song out. Listen here!

yes,
us people are just poems
we're 90% metaphor
with a leanness of meaning...
on the day that america
fell to its knees
after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you
or please
and the shock was subsonic
and the smoke was deafening ...
and there's ash on our shoes
and there's ash in our hair...
cuz take away our playstations
and we are a third world nation...
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son
here's to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce...
cuz when one lone phone rang
in two thousand and one
at ten after nine
on nine one one
which is the number we all called
when that lone phone rang right off the wall
right off our desk and down the long hall
down the long stairs
in a building so tall
that the whole world turned
just to watch it fall

Today, more than half of the 100 biggest economies in the world are not countries but corporations.

you disappoint, gwen.

Summer Vacation: Recap

Comicon Convention: complete with full superhero garb. high: batman. low: no good female superheros.

Zoo.Fun Fact: Flamingos get their color from eating shrimp! (Thanks, Kiki.)

Surfing. Shout out, Spencer. Thanks, dood.[pictures to follow shortly]

Ade!

Oh, and the other Akereles. ;)

Highway 1: Pacific Coast Highway. high: 500 feet cliffs? low: 500 hours long.

Santa Barbara: Ventura:: Pricey: Priceless.

Coronado. Beautiful.

LA. high: peeping into the lives of the rich & famous. low: the Getty Center is closed on Mondays.

Surfing!
Kiki!
San Diego!

::fun::

Grad School?

[This list is for me. I'm losing my mind. I know I've done this before...]

Grad School possibilities? Why must one apply so early?

Berkeley: Journalism, Public Policy, Information Sciences, Economics

Northwestern: Journalism, Economics

University of Chicago: Economics

Georgetown: International Studies

I don't know.

Georgie Porgie

Just received the okay to take Grad classes at the Central European University. Fabulous.

Researching George Soros, a man for whom everybody seems to have it out [for]*. (incidentally, the founder of aforementioned university.) his advocacy for open societies is pretty interesting. The Open Society Institute is one of the most hopeful non-governmental organizations i've seen yet. But this hungarian-born megabillionaire also has his hand in the murky currency-exchange market, the same volatile market that whose 'electronic herd' caused the asian financial crisis and accompanying devaluation of several currencies.

Is he a latter-day robin hood? He's made his money off the economic system while fervently critizing it. But he is admirable (and prolific!), having published several books, attended london school of economics (if only...), and founded a huge philanthropic organization to get rid of some of that excess money of his.

in any case, i am studying at his university. and i'm excited.

Quotes:
"An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others," Soros said. "The Bush administration merely has a narrower definition of self-interest. It does not include the interests of others."

"Financial markets are supposed to swing like a pendulum: They may fluctuate wildly in response to exogenous shocks, but eventually they are supposed to come to rest at an equilibrium point. Instead, as I told Congress, financial markets behaved more like a wrecking ball, swinging from country to country, knocking over the weaker ones. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the international financial system itself is the main culprit in the meltdown process. It is time to recognize that financial markets are inherently unstable."

*okay, you're really not supposed to end sentences with prepositions. it bugs me.

ET No Phone Home

G8...

Protests in Edinburgh. Sometimes, it is just you against an army.